Toward the end of my breast cancer treatment, I couldn’t do much besides sleep. “An exhaustion like nobody knows,” the kind receptionist outside the radiation oncology department called it. Along with painful burns (and the fact that all the other 26-year-olds I knew were off living instead of trekking to the hospital daily), the regimen's side effects could have made the last four months of 2011 an isolating experience. But I was never alone, because my dog, Kip, refused to let me leave his sight. My ‘dog shadow’ followed me from room to room, wedging his back beside my thigh wherever I settled. This from a dog who normally spent his time hiding in the little-used living room, prefering to nap undisturbed. READ MORE

My first — and, as of now, only — top-shelf New York party was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in late 2009, when AOL threw a bash to celebrate its spin-off from Time Warner. I worked for the company's hyper-local news darling, Patch, and our ranks were small enough for everyone to be invited. A couple co-workers and I, excited for an excuse to leave suburban Connecticut, hurried off the Metro-North to join the carpeted entry line. READ MORE